The male gaze

1. The Male Gaze – Laura Mulvey (gender)

2. The Male Gaze The ‘Male gaze’ is a feminist theory, used by Laura Mulvey to explain the visual pleasure and the narrative cinema. The Male Gaze is used to feature the gender power in any film shown Mulvey stated that women were objectified in film because hetrosecual men were in control of the camera This theory thus has been influential in femenist film theory and media studies.

3. When the Male Gaze occurs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaze The male gaze occurs when the camera puts the audience into the perspective of a hetrosexual man It may linger over the curves of a woman’s body The woman is usually displayed on two different levels; as an erotic object or both the characters within the film as well as the spectator who is watching the film The man emerges as the dominant power within the created film fantasy. The woman is passive to the active gaze of a man This adds and element of patriarchal order. Mulvey argues that in mainstream cinema the male gaze typically takes precedence over the female gaze r electing an underlying power of asymmetry.

4. Female Gaze The Female gaze is the same as the male gaze This means that women look at themselves through the eyes of a man The male gaze may be seen by a feminist either as manifestation or unequal power between gazer and gazed, or as a conscious or subconscious attempt to develop inequality.

5. Visual pleasure and narrative cinema: Women are presented as a sexual spectacle and an object of pleasure for the characters audience The camera necessarily present women as a ‘sexualized part’ for pleasure for men Men fantasies and fetishised , which is referred to as ‘Fetishistic scopophilia ’

6. Crtiicism of Mulvey and the Gaze theory Some women enjoy being ‘looked at’ such example van be seen with beauty pagents and models who enjoy the lime light The gaze can also be directed towards members of the same gender because not all of which are sexual, such as in comparison of body image or clothing She doesn't ’ t consider female spectators Mulvey also doesn't ’ t include the idea of women being sexualised as a way to provoke feministic ideals for example in ‘Alien’ she is striped down to her underwear – showing that even though she has been stripped all of what she’s is, she is still a strong independent women fighting a battle

7. Theories applied now… Until the 1990s horror viewing was primarily a pleased for by men, as most characters were based on an active process as men were typically in the role of someone who was attacking, and women were being attacked, showing that they are typically the passive characters within a horror film, however now, it is argued that woman also enjoy horror films. As woman are also more prone to mental illness, other horror films have come around that woman are the attacker and men are the passive characters.

8. Mulvey’s types of ‘looking’ The look of the cameras as it records the filmic event The look of the audience as it watches the final product The look of the characters at each other in the visual images of screen illusion Mulvey thus says that these looks are linked to the issue of genre and representation because many relations of looking in the cinema are informed and disrupted by sexual desire and erotic contemplation of the female form

9. Carl Clover-Men, women and a chainsaw (1992) The analysis of the narrative and style in horror films led her to evaluate that horror ‘is victim identified’. This mean that horror more than any other genre vicitmises and try's to sympathies with specific characters than in any other genre of film. The pleasure of horror are ‘ masochistic’ (someone who enjoys when they’re in pain) for example S&M for both females and males Audience responses involved a wide spectrum of emtional responses from being scared, having joy, laughing, anxiety and fear